Dear New York Republicans: Let’s talk about New York values

Ever since Sen. Cruz used the phrase “New York values” during a Republican debate, I’ve been reading that large numbers of New York Republicans who support Trump are doing so because they cannot get over the psychic pain flowing from Ted Cruz’s statement. I cannot believe that this is true.

That is, I don’t believe that New York Republicans have morphed into the same type of special snowflake now occupying college campuses throughout America. Indeed, if that delicate sensibility characterizes the once stalwart conservative movement, our nation is in dire shape and cannot be saved.

Here’s what I think is happening: Those people who claim both to be Republicans and to have been so damaged by Ted Cruz’s words that they must vote Trump are lying. These people are either Democrats who are messing with conservatives or they are Trump supporters who are embarrassed to admit that they affirmatively embrace Trump and, instead, find it less embarrassing to blame Cruz’s words for a purely political decision.

New Yorkers are accounted to be some of the sharpest people in America. Whether they hail from the Big Apple or the parts upstate, we know that they talk fast, think fast, and pride themselves on their pragmatism. In other words, they are people who can distinguish a short-hand rhetorical device from an actual insult.

In regards to that short-hand rhetorical device. true conservatives fully understand what Sen. Cruz meant with those words. He didn’t mean the New Yorkers who rallied together for 9/11. Instead, he meant:

The New York Times, which is nothing more than a house organ for the Democrat party. True conservatives, if they still bother to read the Times, routinely find themselves shrieking in outrage as they plow through an article, which is followed by crumpling the paper into a small ball and tossing it into the trash, all the while mumbling, “It’s not even good for bird-cage liner anymore because it’s an insult to the birds.”

The New Yorker, which was once a soft Left magazine that aimed to make its middle-class readers feel cultured, but that is now a hardcore Leftist publication that actively, aggressively proselytizes for the Democrat party and for Democrat causes (especially climate change).

The major television news networks other than Fox, all of which have their home offices in New York City, and all of which are, like the Times and the New Yorker, house organs of the Democrat party and hardcore cultural Leftists.

The mayor’s office, which has been occupied for the last 15 years by (a) a guy who claimed to be a moderate, but who nevertheless is virulently anti-Second Amendment and who made quite the impression when he went all nanny state and taxed sodas (that would be Bloomberg); and (b) a hardcore Leftist who has undone all of the quality of life policies Mayor Giuliani put into place and who has so offended the city’s beleaguered police that they turned their backs on him when he spoke at a memorial service for two officers cold-bloodedly killed on his newly socialist streets (that would be de Blasio).

The people of New York City who voted for Mayor de Blasio. To give de Blasio credit, during his campaign he wasn’t shy about his hard-Left political views, so those who voted knew what they were getting. Although 74% of New Yorkers couldn’t be bothered to vote, of the 26% who did show up, almost 74% of them enthusiastically embraced an open socialist who has vigorously enacted policies returning crime and filth to levels last seen in the 1970s. That’s a pretty strong hint that New York City values hew Left, very, very Left. [Update: This Sen. Cruz campaign video seems apropos.]

A city that, partnering with a few Left coast redoubts such as Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco, is working assiduously to void long-standing societal norms regarding bathroom privacy and the right of ordinary Americans not to participate in ceremonies and other activities that offend their beliefs.

The ugly side of New York City values

A city that has been the driving force behind such “cultural moments” as Robert Mapplethorpe’s rise to fame thanks to his explicit gay S&M porn; a “portrait” of the Virgin Mary covered in elephant dung and pictures of vaginas; and the Piss Christ, which was a photograph of a crucifix soaking in a tank of yellow fluid that was allegedly the “artist’s” own urine (see image above). To the extent New York City embraced each of those “moments,” the City must be understood to have cultural values at odds with conservative values.

A city that annually aborts more black babies than are born. In other words, a profoundly racist city that has established a cultural that encourages blacks to commit genocide against themselves.

I could go on, but that list is a pretty comprehensive picture of the values that New York has and that its media organs zealously promote throughout America.

So let me ask you, dear New York Republican, have I actually identified values identified with New York City and media outlets that shill those values throughout America? If you’re a genuine conservative, you’re saying “yes.”

Next question: Looking at the above list, are any of those values your values? I hope you’re saying “no.”

Which leads to this follow-up: Was Ted Cruz insulting you when he used that short-hand phrase during the time-limited pressure cooker of a zoo-like debate to refer to the eight values I’ve listed above? If you answered the preceding question “no,” an honest answer to this question should also be “no.”

Having gone through this catechism, I can only conclude that, if you’re still claiming that Ted Cruz insulted you personally, either (a) you’ve been infected by “special snowflake-ism” and probably need an exorcism; (b) you’re not really a conservative; or (c) you’re using a deliberate misunderstanding as the easiest justification for your decision to back Trump.

If you chose option (c), and you actually think Donald Trump will be the better representative for true conservative values, I beg of you to reconsider your choice before casting your vote in the primary. To that end, there are three things you should read:

The first is the New York Sun’s thoughtful and detailed endorsement explaining why Ted Cruz genuinely deserves the Republican nomination. He hasn’t just been talking for the last few months about protecting our Second Amendment rights, slowing down the genocidal abortion rate, supporting Israel, lowering our taxes, eliminating stifling government regulation, securing our borders, and taking a stand against Islamic terrorism. Ted Cruz has been talking about these issues for years and, moreover, he’s actively and intelligently been using the political process to advance these goals even as he shows absolute fealty to the Constitution:

In the Republican presidential primary in New York, the Sun urges a vote for Senator Ted Cruz. It hasn’t been our normal practice to endorse in the primaries, but this year the vote, set for Tuesday, will take on outsized importance as we career toward a contested convention. The junior senator from Texas has emerged from a crowded field by dint of his fidelity to principles — limited, constitutional government, sound money, free markets, and a strong foreign policy — that couldn’t be at higher premium. They are the true New York Values.

I urge you to read the whole thing. You’ll seldom find a more thoughtful analysis of the key issues and of the candidates’ stances on those issues.

The second, which is especially relevant if you’re Jewish, is a Jerusalem Post article spelling out what a good friend Ted Cruz has been to Israel. Again, Trump talks the talk, but he hasn’t actually done anything. In contrast, Cruz has been a stalwart Israel supporter (meaning that he could not have been dog-whistling antisemitism when he used the phrase “New York values” to refer to New York City’s political and media leftist ideology):

Since arriving in Washington four years ago, Cruz has arguably been Israel’s most avid defender in the Senate. During Operation Protective Edge in July 2014, Cruz used his authority as a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee to force the Obama administration to end the Federal Aviation Commission’s ban on US flights to Ben-Gurion Airport. Cruz announced at the time that he would put a hold on all State Department appointments until the administration justified the flight ban.

Rather than defend its position, the administration restored flights to Israel after 36 hours.

Last summer Cruz led the national opposition to US President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. He brought thousands of activists to the Capitol to participate in a rally he organized calling for Congress to vote down the deal. Rather than use the rally as a means to promote himself, Cruz invited Republican front-runner real estate developer Donald Trump to join him at the rally. Trump’s participation ensured that the event received wide coverage from the national media.

Also, while it’s nice that Trump’s daughter converted to Judaism and married a Jewish man, the fact that she did so proves only that Trump doesn’t have any active animus to Jews. Other than touting his love for Jewry over the last few months, however, he hasn’t actually done anything. Cruz has both talked the talk and walked the walk. Trump hasn’t. He gets kudos for orally supporting Israel, but I’m more interested in a candidate who has used more than words to support that beleaguered liberal democracy trapped in an ocean of hostile, totalitarian Islamism.

The third is an article spelling out the very real risk that Trump is a dangerously malignant narcissist. Most politicians are probably narcissists, and some malignant narcissists are very high functioning, but Trump’s increasingly loopy statements and conduct indicate that he’s rapidly approaching a narcissistic meltdown:

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) published by the American Psychiatric Association lists the criteria that help diagnose the disorder:

1. Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance

2. Expecting to be recognized as superior even without achievements that warrant it

3. Exaggerating your achievements and talents

4. Being preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, and the beauty of the perfect mate

5. Believing that you are superior and can only be understood by or associate with equally special people

6. Requiring constant admiration

7. Having a sense of entitlement

8. Expecting special favors and unquestioning compliance with your expectations

9. Taking advantage of others to get what you want

10. Having an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others

11. Being envious of others and believing others are envious of you

12. Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner

Mayo Clinic’s analysis of the disorder also explains Trump’s appeal to members of the electorate and why it is a problem: “Although some features of narcissistic personality disorder may seem like confidence, it’s not the same. Narcissistic personality disorder crosses the border of healthy confidence into thinking so highly of yourself that you put yourself on a pedestal and value yourself more than you value others.”

[snip]

[T]he symptoms of clinical narcissistic personality disorder are actually a most accurate description of Trump and his erratic and astonishing behavior. As he wins and acquires more power, his problem is getting worse and becoming more evident to more and more people.

We see Trump obsessing about the size of his hands, his unbelievable and exaggerating boasting about himself and his constant exaggeration about his achievements, his incessant attack on people who Trump believes do not admire and adulate him, his constant inability to recognize his faults or repent, and his incredible lack of empathy for other human beings. Trump suffers from a distorted perception of reality regarding himself. Trump sounds authentic because that is precisely an effect of the clinical narcissistic personality disorder. Precisely because they are not psychologically well, individuals who suffer from clinical narcissistic personality disorder really believe their distorted projection of themselves.

For seven years, conservatives have been complaining about the endless damage another malignant narcissist — Barack Obama — has done to America. His ideological rigidity; his inability to accept data and constructive criticism from people with greater knowledge than he has; the “Me, Myself, and I” filter that he puts on his official conduct, which shows that, in his own mind, he is not America’s representative but is, instead, America’s king; and the personal vendettas he’s pursued from the White House all show how terribly dangerous it is to elect to the presidency someone who is not constrained either by either the Bible or the Constitution. Ted Cruz, who is frightfully intelligent, recognizes both of those limitations on power. Obama recognizes limitations on his power only to regret those limitations, and it appears that Trump is cut from the same cloth.

Finally, dear New York Republicans, I fully understand your frustration with the direction this nation has taken. I’m pretty darn frustrated myself. I would just like to suggest that Trump may well make it worse, while Cruz has shown the brains, experience, and principle to make things better.